The first EMRS state voting intentions poll taken after the state election is up. It shows the Liberals a few points below their state election result but still in majority government territory. It also "shows" a massive surge to the Greens, at least half of which should be ignored given the pollster's long-term habit of overestimating the Green vote and underestimating Labor's. Although the poll shows Labor down on their election result, they are most likely at least level, perhaps even slightly up.

The tracker graph has been updated but here you need to be aware that some of those dots are not like the others; in particular the ones called elections do not have pollster house effects. Compared to the last poll before the election, this one purports to show the Greens significantly up (by 4 points), Labor insignificantly up and everyone else insignificantly down.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

"[..] you are a playboy and a dilettante, with no real desire to ever work, to hold a job, to repay society for suffering your existence. You are an opportunist. You are irresponsible. You are a drone."

For the source of the quote, read on.

This article is just a shortish (by my standards) semi-flippant comment on something that interests me in the current Budget debates.

One of the most contentious Coalition decisions in the current Budget debate is a proposal to not allow unemployed people under the age of 30 access to unemployment benefits until they have been unemployed for six months. The time for which benefits can't be accessed drops by one month for every year a person has spent in the workforce, although how this is calculated if a person has spent many years semi-employed, self-employed or intermittently employed is not yet clear. Many, including me, have found this policy to be unbelievably nasty at first look. On Twitter I described this policy as worse than everything else in this and many other budgets put together.

On that ABC program I rarely watch (because I dislike talking-head panel shows and bear-baiting in general) Treasurer Hockey was asked a direct question about what happens to someone who finishes their education, having not been in the workforce, and simply cannot get a job. The questioner - who spoke very well indeed - assumed, as many would, that the result for such a person would be six months with no income.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Scroll to bottom for latest updates - updated through May and first week of JuneCurrent aggregate: 54.2 to Labor (+0.3 since last week, +2.9 in five weeks)
Tracking graph (smoothed)

Advance Summary
After holding a slim and by no means election-winning polling lead for five months from November 2013 to April 2014, the Labor Opposition moved into a clear and widening polling lead in the weeks surrounding the 2014 Budget, and would easily win a hypothetical election "held now". The polling position of the Coalition is roughly comparable to the two worst slumps of John Howard's first term, but many federal governments have recovered from similar, and in at least four cases worse, polling situations.

The federal budget is among the worst received in the last 27 years, second only to the 1993 "horror budget" in terms of its perceived impact on poll respondents and providing the worst ratings since the early 1990s in terms of perceptions of its impact on the economy. Tony Abbott's personal ratings are among the worst recorded in one pollster's history (Nielsen), while in another's (Newspoll) they do not stand out so much, but are nonetheless the worst results he has recorded since late 2012.

Nice results maps at The Tally Room.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Monday 8:10 pm: Sorry for the slow updates; Monday's my chess night. Anyway it's all over; Armstrong has smashed Hodgman on Smith's preferences winning 57.7% of them; Hodgman with 17.8% couldn't even beat exhaust. Final result is a whopping 57:43 to the Huon Valley mayor, but the real margin was his survival at the Smith exclusion by under 3% of the total.